People who live near a small St. Paul market that’s been the subject of a large number of police calls were relieved to see officers raid it last week, but they’re frustrated it remains open.

Police found marijuana and a digital scale at the market at 605 Stryker Ave. and arrested an employee, said Sgt. Paul Paulos, a St. Paul police spokesman. The 21-year-old man was released from jail, and police said they continue to investigate.

The building’s sign says “West Side Groceries,” but people in the neighborhood still call it the Stryker Market, its previous name. The market is on Stryker Avenue between King and Elizabeth streets, next to a community garden. A market with a similar name at Robert and Cesar Chavez streets, West Side Grocery, has a different owner.

Police have received “numerous complaints” about narcotics and people loitering in the parking lot and in front of the store, according to a police report last week.

“We have a lot of pride in our neighborhood. … For the most part, it’s a very safe, very connected neighborhood,” said Christine Shyne, West Side Community Organization executive director. “We want people to be able to feel like they walk around in their neighborhood. I would love to have a store there that the whole community can use. … I would like it to be an asset rather than a detriment to the community.”

RECENT DISTURBANCES

The owner, Hamza Abualzain, wasn’t at the store when a Pioneer Press reporter stopped by and called, and he didn’t return a voicemail message.

The store employee who was arrested Friday told a man that he had marijuana for his personal use but not for sale, according to the man, who identified himself only as a friend of the store’s manager.

Asked about neighborhood concerns about loitering and drug dealing around the business, the man said drug activity isn’t occurring.

“People that used to hang out in front of the building were local community kids,” he said. “There’s only so much we can do. We call the police, they shoo them away and they come back.”

Police executed a search warrant at the market Friday after an investigation, Paulos said. The department hasn’t released information about how much marijuana they found or other details of the case.

The man arrested was booked into jail on suspicion of a sale of a controlled substance; police haven’t presented a case to prosecutors.

Police were at the address 21 times, including to execute the search warrant, in the 16 days between June 1 and Monday, according to police records about calls for service. During the same period, from June 1 to June 16, police were at or outside the address nine times last year and once in 2012. For the police calls this month, six calls were characterized as disturbances; those were logged between June 10 and Friday.

POLICE RAID FRIDAY

The store’s tobacco license shows a change in ownership to Abualzain in June 2011, according to DSI records.

The previous owner was sent to federal prison in 2012 for what a prosecutor called “pervasive” food stamp fraud. Federal agents alleged he cheated the government out of more than $2.5 million by trading cash for food-stamp benefits the government reimbursed him for.

A woman who lives about three blocks from the market said people also were constantly coming and going from the store under its previous ownership, but the former owner made sure people weren’t hanging around outside.

The woman, who asked that her name not be published because of safety concerns, said her 20-year-old daughter was going to the store recently to get a soda and was approached by people outside who asked, “Do you want ‘loud’?” — a slang term for marijuana.

Another neighbor’s niece parked on the street near the market and two men came up to her car, saying something like, “What do you need?” the woman said.

A woman who lives within a block of the market said she won’t go anymore, especially with her young children. She said she has seen drug dealing in the market’s doorway, the parking lot and other places in the area.

“It’s completely obvious and up-front, the exchange of money and whatnot,” said the woman, who also asked that her name not be published. “It’s like they don’t even bother to try to hide it anymore.”

People in the area saw a big public-safety presence when police searched the store Friday — in addition to officers, a St. Paul fire rescue squad was there and a Minnesota State Patrol helicopter was in the air. Neighbors and regular customers were surprised to see the business reopen after the raid, said the woman who lives down the street.

“At this point, we’re saying close it down, bulldoze the building, make the community garden bigger or build a police substation,” said the woman who lives a few blocks away. “It’s gotten so bad, but we had such a nice, quiet neighborhood … until the last couple of years.”

INCREASED POLICE PRESENCE

A city can go to court to ask that a business be declared “a public nuisance” and have it shut if there is proof of unlawful sale or possession of drugs within the building, according to state law.

The St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections is working with St. Paul police and the city attorney’s office to determine what steps it will take about the market, said DSI spokesman Robert Humphrey.

Citizen complaints about the business this month alone have been about graffiti on a fence, an overflowing clothes-donation bin in the parking lot with people using it as a trash container, and tall grass/unkempt boulevard, DSI records show.

Another police report about the business said police got information that the clerk they’d arrested Friday sold three single cigarettes to a customer for 75 cents each on Tuesday; the sale of single cigarettes isn’t permitted. DSI is investigating, Humphrey said.

The man who answered the phone at the market Wednesday and who called himself a friend of the manager, said he hadn’t heard the report about cigarettes sold singly. “That’s something we’ll have to address,” he said. “We don’t do that.”

The senior police commander for the area, David Mathison, went to the West Side Community Organization’s board meeting last week and talked to residents, said Shyne, the group’s executive director

He spoke about an increased police presence and curfew enforcement, and encouraged residents to call the police non-emergency number right away if they see suspicious activity, she said. Mathison also said some additional “community ambassadors” would be in the area. They’re part of a citywide youth intervention initiative that works to connect young people with social services and job programs.

‘CASH MOB’ CHALLENGES IMAGE

Lindsay Ferris Martin lives on the West Side and organized a cash mob Monday night to support a business that’s near the old Stryker Market, but that has been a good place for the community, she said. A cash mob is a group of people who assemble at a local business and make purchases.

Ferris Martin got the idea to bring a cash mob to Icy Cup at 63 W. George St., which specializes in soft-serve ice cream and coffee, after someone posted on a neighborhood social website about bringing children to the restaurant and having “a horrible experience (not from Icy Cup) but some riffraff in the area,” Ferris Martin wrote on a Facebook page for the event. “This woman mentioned she wouldn’t be going back again because of the problem people in the neighborhood. I didn’t think that was fair to Icy Cup because we need their business in the neighborhood.”

Despite the rain, about 60 people attended, along with representatives from the police and fire departments, Ferris Martin said. There is discussion about having another cash mob at Icy Cup and at other mom-and-pop businesses, she said.

“Neighbors were talking with each other (at the gathering) about their concerns and frustrations, but also how grateful they were … to get to know each other,” Ferris Martin said.

Mara Gottfried has been a Pioneer Press reporter since 2001, mostly covering public safety. Gottfried lived in St. Paul as a young child and returned to the Twin Cities after graduating from the University of Maryland. You can reach her at 651-228-5262.

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